Cyclical

Cyclical,
the motion: traveling on 
emptiedout winter grass eyes,
boxes scattered across the field,
all the pieces vacuumed out, no more
pride now, truths in teardrops
cracking the whole, neat like
a hard-boiled egg. 

Manic incandescence, sealing
up boxes with pieces of string, soul,
splinter there, pieces laid to rest, goodbye. 
Beautiful design on hollow shell,
Faberge egg too delicately broken,
priceless common thing. Words
said too quickly, words said
not at all. 

Homing call, geese flying home at night: V’s
cutting stars in half,
celestial blue-black, grim
in sunshine, shadows flatter. Boxes
are packed, ready for morning,
stacked neatly in soul-corners,
don’t ask, don’t tell: official business
of the day, get through, move
on, cyclical,
cyclical. 

 

Undercover

Holding secrets like a street
bomb—touch
me,
red silk gloved
shedding whispers like shivers
phantasms dancing on graves. We

tripped the trigger
walking; you stumbled
onto
a sidewalk crack
swallowing childhood myths, I

exploded,
siren screech on fire, your
gloves were soaked
in gasoline. Secrets buried

with ghosts. We shudder
when someone speaks our name.

Seasons

It’s the break
down, the descent
of sullen winter into kinder spring.
I watch gray skies,
I pray for blue,
I’ve stopped praying lately, I wonder
if I’ve forgotten
how, to find childlike faith
is like finding tears in the rain.
I tasted spring 
mixed in with the snowflakes
and my coffee,
walking home in spiderweb morning,
woman burgeoning underground
like April buds, 
the frost has to come first,
diamond death kissing
life. There must be more
than the seasons passing,
but don’t worry about me,
I’ve never needed 
that, I’ve weathered winters
for years now.

Future Hysteria, Parent Wisdom, and Is It Enough?

Last night, I was working myself pretty deep into a fit of full-on hysteria, waving green beans around in a frenzy of rage and overwhelming anxiety, coupled with a tremendous desire to burst into tears.

I was getting sat down for a Talk, about my Future, a subject which causes me unwarranted amounts of anxiety and tears whenever I think about it. Which, for obvious reasons, means I try not to think about it/avoid it whenever possible. However, last night, I walked blithely into the trap my parents had cunningly laid around the pork chops and green beans. Much to my horror and dismay, about twenty minutes into the advice and lecturing and well meant attempts at comfort, I felt tears prickling behind my eyelids. It was part sheer frustration, annoyance, and despair.

I was spouting “What if’s” left and right—what if I never ever get an internship? What if I have no job experience? What if I’m broke and living in your house after college? What if no one wants to hire me ever? What if I end up stuck in a job I hate but that pays the rent? What if I fade into simple mediocrity? What if I can’t pay off college? What if I drown in debt? Do you guys have any idea how competitive my field is? Do you guys also realize how impractical my fields of study are? They’re not exactly guaranteeing me a career. I don’t even bloody well effing know what I want to do with English!

With every statement, I could hear my voice rising in pitch and volume, higher and shriller in sheer panic about my Future.

**

I hate having no purpose. No direct goal. I hate floating. I hate casting about for the unknown. I don’t like to go fishing without knowing I’m going to catch a fish, which is a very silly metaphor for me to use, as I don’t even fish. Nevertheless. However, this is the state of being I’ve been in for the last two years, with the grim notion that I’m never going to find IT. Whatever IT is—a nice idealistic idea that IT will make me happy and content and will give me enough money to pay for grown-up things like the incredible amount of college debt I’m accumulating, an apartment, a car + gas + insurance + repairs, and so on and so forth. I am acutely aware of the clock ticking. “Two more years,” it whispers, “two more years…you’d better hurry up, or you’re going to be left behind…you’d better figure out your life girl, or else.”

“It’s your greatest blessing and your greatest curse,” my father pointed out calmly, last night, taking another sip of sherry.

I stared at him dumbfounded. You must be joking.

“You have a terrible freedom,” he continued reasonably. “You have so many choices in front of you. And once you find a passion, you’ll be terrifying. You’ll be unstoppable.”

I don’t know how he can see a restless fire in me, shifting and writhing in sheer agony of not KNOWING, but he can. Even when I think it’s gone out. But maybe that’s why he’s my dad—to see things in me that I can’t. To believe in me and a future that seems vague at best, when I can’t.

**

This afternoon after work, I was almost to my bike, when I turned abruptly—almost running into a baseball family—and headed for the back corner of my favorite coffeeshop. I was armed with pen, paper, and a cup of coffee, fully intending to write a letter to a friend recently embarked on an exchange year to Belgium.

I ended up finally writing. Writing this. Most importantly, writing for me. Something I haven’t meaningfully done in awhile. Something I’ve convinced myself I haven’t had the time to do.

I think it was maybe the German music that did it. It came on my shuffle and the Northern German accent of Peter Fox comforted me. It brought me home for a little while at least. I flipped to my German playlist and let the lilt of a foreign, familiar tongue take me somewhere different.

I’d complained this summer that I had no energy to write. I haven’t.

But it is the season of leave-takings and new things. Goodbyes always leave me a little pondery. The leaves will change in my tiny town and the baseball tourists will disappear. Life will go on. More high schoolers I don’t recognize with lives and intrigues of their own will fill the hallways soon. My parents will accumulate a few more gray hairs. My childhood will be a little bit further behind me.

I’ve changed a lot this summer. There have been people—who were dear to my heart—who have slipped quietly out of my life. It happens, but it makes me a little sad at the same time. I’ve met wonderful people this summer. I tasted a bitterness that won’t go away, that I’m afraid will never quite go away, no matter how long I tell myself it’s over. It’s sort of frightening, to taste that sort of anger, the kind that you can’t get out by scrubbing and starting over. I had a lot of time to do a lot of thinking and I didn’t always like what I found. My room is full of boxes and emptiness. I’m packing my life back up and starting again. College is like a series of rebirths. So it’s fitting that my cousin’s baby was born this week and that one of my mom’s patients died this week. Life and death.

**

“Stop beating yourself up over what you haven’t done,” my mother pointed out, cradling her cup of coffee in her tired hands. “Think of what you have done. You’ve had a lot of life in your years.”

“We’re not worried about you,” my father added, shrugging. “We look at you and we see how young you are in the whole scheme of things. It may not seem like it to you, but you have plenty of time.”

And then the Talk diverged into nonsense, with things getting truly weird in my house, because my parents are insane and I always get a bit of a sugar rush after dinner.

But it’s true. They’re right—as they so often are. I am young. A fledgling adult with a passion for words, too many feelings, a love of hot coffee and good books, and a tendency to love passionately and often. I have a lot of flaws. I am not always a good person.

But on the days when I ask:

“Is it enough?”,

I want to be able to look at my sum of days and assure myself, that it is indeed. I am young and I have so much time. It is enough.

The Pool

I am comfortably enveloped in the scent of chlorine, wet hair dripping down my back, feeling my arm and shoulder muscles scream in protest. I am beyond content.

I gave up swimming after high school, but I never stopped loving it. Watching the Olympics has been killing me, so I decided to head to the gym (which is two houses and a field away, I have no excuses) tonight, and kill two birds with one stone. (So much killing happening in that sentence…)

The Boy was there and I could finally jump in the pool. So, perfect.

It was so weird coming back to the gym after three years, walking down the stairs, going into the locker room where I visited almost daily for six or seven months out of the year–in the days when I swam in the fall AND the winter. The showers were new, I noticed. The cell service was still crappy. The stairwell still smelled of stale chlorine and sweat. It was oddly comforting.

The Boy was there and I said hi, squinting blurrily at his fuzzy face, apologizing. “Sorry, I literally cannot see anything right now.” Take my glasses away and I’m perfectly helpless. The eye doctor told me I have 20/400 vision today. Which, I take it, means my vision sucks hardcore.

The clock was off, but I wasn’t intending to do sprints today. Instead, I got a kickboard and a pull buoy and started in on warm-ups. A 200 left me winded and I ended up panting at the end, disgusted with myself.

You would do 600’s for warm-ups, nagged that little inner voice. Come on.

I tested out every stroke: freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, tentatively waiting on butterfly. I hadn’t done butterfly, my favorite stroke in three years. I remembered what a bitch that stroke was, even on a good day. I also remembered feeling powerful and like I could fly. I was damn good at it. I like being good at things, and it’s not even real cockiness, it’s just satisfaction at knowing I can nail something again and again and again. The ankle I busted at the beginning of the summer wrenched a little kicking off the wall, even just kicking in general hurt a little.

A spasm of fear had followed a few weeks after that clumsy fall, when I’d jumped in the lake, tried to swim, and my ankle had sent me floundering to the ladder, terrified. It was not having any of that kicking business.

What if I can’t swim again?

I was swimming now, but it reminded me that my ankle was still not 100%. My butterfly kick felt out of joint, walking the line between a decent kick and not injuring my ankle again. I hate being reminded that my body is not up to certain things anymore.

Long story short, I accidentally ended up doing way more butterfly than I intended. At least 200 yards, not all at once, obviously. I was teaching The Boy better technique and just rejoicing in the fact I could still do it. I can do a decent 25 and a decent 50 with fins on. I also managed a 100 IM (25 yards of butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, and freestyle), of which I was very proud.

I miss the pool. I don’t get there enough. But I miss being a swimmer. The power. The feeling of grace in the water, that I hardly get on land. The ease with which my body accepts the motions. A perfect flip turn. The smell of chlorine in your hair after. Toweling off after a workout. The perfect start, the solidness in your bones when you know you’ve gotten something right. The entire feeling.

However, my arms and shoulders started aching as I was in the pool. Which means raising my arms above my head tomorrow is not going to be happening. But I’m so content.

And you know, seeing The Boy wasn’t bad either. 😉

A Confession & A Promise

(Can also be found here.)

**

I am often impulsive, selfish, chaotic, cynical, impatient, egoistic, confusing, jealous, unkind, greedy, and unhappy. I often act before I think. I am self-conscious, insecure, and all together too passive.

These are my very human traits.

But so are these:

a readiness to love everyone and everything, the grace to admit when I am wrong and the strength to apologize, a talent for words, a love of people and travel and newness, an open mind, a sheer joy in the world, a zest for living, and a desire to do better.

Never tell me you expected something more. I am very human. I make mistakes, often and well. I try to fly before I can walk. I fall a lot. You may not always like what you get. But if you expect an angel, a girl on a pedestal, perfection, turn around and walk the other way. I will never be any of those things.

I try as hard as I can every day. I can’t do any more. Please don’t expect it of me: I expect it of myself enough.

In the meantime, I promise to love you and the rest of the world as much as I can, as best I can, with as much of me as I can. The world always needs more love, even on the sunniest of days. And so, I suspect, do you.

Saying Goodbye

I haven’t been writing much lately.

No, that’s a lie.

I haven’t been writing here lately. I’ve filled three and a half journals since I got home in May. But lately, I’ve been saving up my words, storing them away, immersing myself in the moment, and waiting to release them when the time is right.

The time is right. I said goodbye to my friends today. My world is slowly returning to normal, everything fading back to gray after that first explosion of color. The grass is wilting outside. We need rain. Our tomatoes are growing faster than we can pluck them. The work week starts up tomorrow again. The air stuck to my skin this morning, as if the summer heat wanted to smother me with its sweaty love. I really have nothing to complain about. Which is probably a first.

But let’s go back to saying goodbye.

There are no good words for saying goodbye. There are good words for lots of things. But saying goodbye is not included in there. Standing in the middle of a train station with people rushing to and fro with suitcases, greeting family members, everyone with their own agendas: I was lost for words, in both languages. Saying goodbye to two friends who I hadn’t seen in a year, who came from my other life into the life I lead now. A joining of my two worlds. A week of weirdly normal activities in two languages. A reversed situation: I was the host, the tour guide, the one who knew my way around. And now we had to say goodbye again. I will say it was a lot less traumatic than last July, when I stood in a circle of tears and cried my way through customs.

We fumbled our way through them, our mouths screwing up to say words that didn’t quite say everything we wanted to.

“I’ll miss you so much.”

“Have a safe rest of your trip.”

“Love you.”

“It was so, so, SO good to see you again.”

“Thank you for everything.”

“Text me when you get to Niagara Falls safe.”

“We’ll see each other again soon.”

That last is true.

No matter where we go in the world,  we’ll see each other again soon.

Man sieht sich immer zweimal im Leben.**

This I believe. This I have to believe.

**You always see each other twice in life.

Leaps of Faith

I wrote about taking leaps of faith the other day. If I could paint or draw or was in any way artistically gifted, I would draw this picture of myself: me wandering around in an open space, arms outstretched, head tilted up to the sky, a thousand question marks dotting the sky like little stars. This picture would more or less represent where I am in my life right now. A thousand questions and not that many answers. I’m letting myself be led down paths simply because I feel in my gut that they’re right. And I’m constantly praying for that answer: “What am I going to do with my life?”

I am taking a thousand leaps of faith into the abyss daily. I see a mediocre life that I could easily fall into. Working at a job I neither passionately love nor passionately despise, to pay for bills and basic living. Never accomplishing anything, never aspiring to anything great. I see my 20’s go by in a frenzy of work, not enough time for me, a whirl of head and heart, and things that got left unsaid. I see all this and am seized by an irrational, terrible fear.

And then something will click so perfectly into place, like it did this morning.

I came home from a lovely early morning breakfast with my best friend (to be creative nonfictioned later today) and sat down to check my email. I had written my youth exchange counselor in Germany a long email (as I am wont to do) a few weeks ago, and briefly mentioned I was looking into an Au Pair year in Germany. He’d written me back yesterday, saying if I was really planning an Au Pair year, he and his wife (whom I adore) would reconsider not taking an Au Pair this year. I asked him to reconsider, fingers crossed so hard. He wrote back this morning, saying he and Britta weren’t going to take one, but he had a friend in mind, and would I please send him a picture, resume, and why I wanted to be an Au Pair in Germany. I am holding my breath and crossing my fingers so hard right now.

Also, Florence and the Machine’s new album Ceremonials is making this morning brilliant. And my summer book stack grew again, and I’m still stuck on War and Peace, which, if you haven’t read it, you really should sometime. Tolstoy isridiculous. He has some of the most profound commentary on war, history, and the squibbles in human nature that I’ve ever seen. And his characters are so very human: you can’t fully like them or hate them. You see both their strengths and their weaknesses. It’s wonderful.

It’s only 8:40 am where I am. I hope wherever you are, you had a similarly beautiful morning.

800 Race Pace

It was a little past 7:30 and the morning sun was lighting up our high school track beautifully. My friend and I walked to the lanes where 100 meter hurdles usually began, hesitated a moment, and then decided to walk up to the starting line.

“It’ll make us feel more accomplished about finishing,” I pointed out. Half of running is psychological.

“Yeah, I was feeling a little weird about starting here.”

We dropped our keys, water bottles, and weights down on the grass, and eyed the track. I hadn’t been on the track since my senior year of high school, now, gulp, three years behind me.

“Oh my God, so many memories,” I groaned, seeing the 800 starting lines.

“I don’t even want to talk about it,” said Katie, shaking her head. We were both four-year high school track veterans, used to spending between March and May running circles against ourselves and competitors. We ran in wind, rain, mud, and sometimes the track was covered with snow, so we ran on the sidewalks instead.

“I can’t believe we’re actually up this early,” I muttered, as we started our warm-up.

It was Day 2 of our grand thirty-day fitness plan. Today was interval day. Aka: warm up for 5 minutes. Run at a decently challenging pace for 2 minutes, moderate pace for 1 minute. Do these intervals for 20 minutes. Cool down for 5 minutes. I had to work at 10 am and Katie had summer classes at 9 am. We were both working till later in the evening, so here we were, at 7:30, already sweating on our old high school track.

“This sounded like such a good idea yesterday afternoon when we planned it.”

We started off our first interval at 800 pace–my old friend and enemy. I was an 800’er in high school, running the 800 and 4 x 800 relay. It was the perfect cross between sprinting and long distance. You couldn’t take a nice easy pace, but if you sprinted too fast in the beginning, you would just die in the middle. Two laps of the track doesn’t look like too much, but when you’re racing, it feels like forever. I remember my coach yelling at me at my 400 split to either pick it up or that I was right on track (no pun intended).

“I can’t believe I still remember what an 800 pace still feels like.”

We finished our hard interval, and slowed down to a jog.

“1500 pace?” Katie joked.

“Ugh.”

The first few felt decent. Number four was pushing it. By number five, I was so thankful we were almost done. And number six was basically just sheer willpower. Interval workouts suck. As we were rounding the last curve of Interval Number Six, Katie panted; “Reminds me of a workout we did in track.”

“She [my coach] should use these,” I groused, pushing my glasses higher up on my nose. “For all those unlucky middle distance runners. We did the 54321 though.”

We both made faces.

The 54321 was to run for five minutes, then four, then three, and so on, and we were supposed to see how many laps we could run in those time spans. If we were second, third, or fourth year runners, our lappage was compared to past distances. Running (really running) for five minutes is painful.

On the other hand, we both fondly remembered how in shape we were during track. My favorite thing? Runner’s legs.

In a way, as we walked our last minute, I missed the feeling of competition. The spike of adrenaline right before a race, the long bus rides with team members, being captain of the track team senior year. We finished our thirty minute workout with a sigh of relief and headed to the shade to do ab workouts.

By 8:30 we were finished with our exercise for the day. So many track memories to think about today.

Once the rain has come, there is nothing left to do but dance in it.

Snippets from a vacation in Maine:

**

Ah, but we are of a different breed, we who can sit by the water’s edge and dream forever, spinning out beautiful fantasies in our minds. Time passes, shadows lengthen, tide rises, and we are lost somewhere amid the sound of surf and children shrieking as they play, the smell of salt air and marsh grasses.  Our toes dig into the warm sand, we tilt our heads back to feel the sun, and life is perfect for these few blissful hours.

**

The pebbly coast stretches on forever, with white houses nestled snugly into the surprising hills that rise out of it. Fingers of land reach out, stretching yearningly into the rippling ocean. Blue in sea and sky, a sudden surprise thunderstorm, flowers in my hair, and I’m drenched, laughing, spinning on the beach. Once the rain has come, there is nothing left to do but dance in it. I will hang my clothes on the clothesline stretching between two pines later, and the summer sun will dry them and me.

**

Like your predecessors, the sea reminds me of you. The smell of salt, the squish of sand, the heat of the sun–if I close my eyes for long enough, I can almost feel your hand in mine.